Backlog of thoughts

A trip to Portland interrupted my posts. Portland is a wonderful city with a very lively downtown, thanks to successful urban growth boundaries. Also home to Powell's Books, the largest bookstore in America. (Where else can you find the AMS volumes of lectures on QFT given to mathematicians at the IAS a few years ago?) However, finding WiFi hotspots is still not as easy as it should be :-)

Random thoughts:

* A sad day for Harvard: Summers suffered a no-confidence vote (by a narrow margin) from the FAS faculty. Earlier polls had shown more support among professional school faculty (who are not part of FAS) and scientists, and less among humanists and social scientists. The right wing is going to have a field day with this - liberal democrat Summers is too conservative for the academic thought police at Harvard!

* Steroids are in the news: amazingly, when I was a kid playing high school and college sports, many coaches, doctors and sports trainers told us steroids didn't work ("it's all placebo effect"). What a bunch of nonsense! I had several friends who took steroids, and believe me, they *do* work - affecting not just muscle development, but also personality. Next thing they'll tell us is testosterone has no effect on early brain development, despite convincing studies in rats and other mammals. (See previous thought.)

* Record fixed income profits for Goldman and Morgan Stanley last quarter. I guess the carry-trade is still a winner! :-)